1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method for enhanced viewing of digital video recordings, including both purchased video disks and material recorded by the viewer. More particularly, it relates to a method that enables a user to identify specific program segments that are to be viewed and/or segments which are not desirable to be viewed. These selected segments of the identified program can be viewed or skipped without the user's intervention during the specific program viewing.
2. Background Description
A recording of a television broadcast made using a digital video recorder (DVR) or a digital recording available on Digital Video Disks (DVDs) provides a user with random access to the stored video data in compressed digital form. These television or other programs may contain certain program segments (e.g., commercials, pornographic, or otherwise undesirable material, geographically relevant segments, etc.) which are or are not of interest to the user. Present digital video recording systems enable a viewer to identify specific programs by either one of several methods (e.g., title, time, channel, keyword, etc.) to be recorded. However, present DVR technology does not typically allow a user to specify the desirable viewing segments within a program. Users can record selected program and then manually select segments to be skipped or replayed during the viewing of the program. This requires intervention by the user to view the programs in a non-sequential manner.
Additionally, pre-recorded programs available on DVD also have an ability for the data to be accessed in a non-sequential manner. This access is managed using “track lists” which consist of a set of beginning and ending image numbers which are typically stored on the DVD with the program file. These track lists are commonly selected as “chapters” or “scenes” from the DVD viewing menu. However, the user is limited to those tracklists provided on the DVD.